


see life as a worthy opponent

by celebii



Series: Reverse Robins AU [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Cassandra Cain-Wayne's Endless Battle Against an Unhealthy Savior Complex, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied stephcass, Jason Todd is Robin, Reverse Robins, Stephanie Brown is Red Hood, Tim Drake is Oracle, mention of trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29787759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebii/pseuds/celebii
Summary: Stephanie removes her helmet, letting her blonde curls out. Cassandra watches, skin flushing slightly as a red domino mask turns on her, shaping her up.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain
Series: Reverse Robins AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2168343
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	see life as a worthy opponent

Cassandra knows that Stephanie sneaks in through the Wayne Manor windows after a rough patrol. She's seen her hobbling through the halls enough times to confirm it, clutching at a bloody side and grunting as she searches for an empty bedroom to pass out in. When Cassandra can hear her snoring through the door, she opens it quietly, sneaks over to the nightstand, and deposits a medical kit that Alfred gave her. She would tend to Stephanie's injuries herself, but she knows that nothing good would come of that. Stephanie is a minefield on a good day, and any day when she's forced to enter the Manor is most definitely _not_ a good day.

Once, she thinks she hears Stephanie stir. Her form tenses ever so slightly in the darkness, and Cassandra freezes for a few moments, watching, waiting. When she's greeted with stubborn silence, Cassandra leaves.

Tim is in the Cave, and he wheels towards her when she makes her way down the steps.

"How is she?" Tim asks, and Cassandra can see a flicker of hope flit across his face. When she glances at the monitor of the Batcomputer, she can see the Manor’s security cameras running, poised towards the back gardens—Tim, who is in control of the system, is fully aware of the former Robin’s presence. He has never given up on Stephanie. Cassandra knows she hasn’t, either, but Tim stubbornly clings to what once was no matter how many times the Red Hood has torn him down. It makes Cassandra's chest ache, and she meets Tim’s bloodshot gaze, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his hair.

“Sleeping,” she says simply, and he nods, turning to face the computer again.

The third time Cassandra pays her a nightly visit, Stephanie turns her head at the _thunk_ of the medical kit hitting the nightstand. Cassandra watches, unimpressed as her eyes flash green in the darkness, pit-ridden and red-rimmed.

“Get out,” Stephanie says icily.

Cassandra does not move, instead electing to stare at Stephanie, her ragged Batgirl cape whispering across the wooden floor. She’s spoken to Damian about this in length, symptoms of Lazarus exposure and the crazed kind of rage afterwards that hardly seems to ebb. She can weather this storm—she has to.

Stephanie juts a chin at the nightstand, and Cassandra notices the beginnings of a bruise on her cheekbone. "I'm not gonna use it anyway. Just take it. I'll be out of your hair in the morning, believe me."

Cassandra takes a step towards the bed, her movements calculated, and summons Bruce in her mind. "You always have a place here," she says fiercely. "Always. You don't need to crawl through the windows."

There's a few beats of silence between them, full of jittery breathing. And then Stephanie turns her head back around, pointedly ignoring Cassandra. It doesn't sting. Cassandra thinks she's making at least _some_ progress as she steps over Stephanie's discarded helmet and into the hallway.

Under the cool blue light of the Batcave's medbay, Alfred is stitching Damian up, who grimaces slightly every time the needle punctures his wound. 

"B?" Cassandra asks, taking a seat and slipping off a boot. She dabs disinfectant on a scratch snaking its way up her leg.

"Father is still out," Damian says, giving a nod to Alfred and standing up. His Nightwing suit is littered with tears and his expression is gaunt. "He'll be here soon."

When Alfred approaches her, Cassandra raises her gaze to meet his and can see the question in his movements before it leaves his mouth. He leans towards her, ready to stitch up a particularly deep cut, and she speaks preemptively.

"She's here," Cassandra murmurs, gaze on Damian as he leaves the medbay and approaches the Batcomputer. "On the fifth floor. She's okay."

Alfred's shoulders sag in relief, and Cassandra sees Damian's tense ever so slightly.

* * *

The next time Cassandra sees Stephanie, it's three weeks later on a slow patrol night. With Tim's voice in her ear, Batgirl approaches the Red Hood, who's sitting on a rooftop, legs hanging off the edge.

"No kid with you?" Stephanie asks, shifting slightly.

Cassandra is quiet. She would never bring Jason along to see Stephanie, but she expects Stephanie knows that. Based on Tim’s loose monitoring of her activities, she expects she knows Bruce is off-world right now, too. She's goading her.

"What are you working on?" Cassandra asks.

Stephanie removes her helmet, letting her blonde curls out. Cassandra watches, skin flushing slightly as a red domino mask turns on her, shaping her up. “A case.”

She turns away, clearly intending that to be the end of the conversation, but Cassandra takes a seat next to Stephanie, tucking her cape around herself. After two minutes of steady silence, Stephanie accepts defeat with a sigh and taps at her wrist computer. Cassandra opens up her own, the holographic images glowing blue in the darkness. There’s a grainy picture of a frail old man and some kids along with a GCPD file. Cassandra shifts closer to Stephanie, squinting beneath her face mask in an attempt to make out distinguishing features among the array of people.

“Noel Schmidt,” Stephanie supplies gruffly. “Disappeared five days ago. Used to take in Crime Alley kids.”

Stephanie's speech is stilted and her face is tense. Cassandra lowers her wrist and stares at the apartment building across from them.

"You knew him?" Cassandra asks softly.

"He took me in once, when Dad got back from prison and things were rough. He treated me well. Thought I'd return the favor." Stephanie lifts a pair of binoculars and gestures towards the apartment building. "Someone's gotta look out for Crime Alley. Damian and Tim never liked this place, you know that? Always had this...distaste for it."

A small smile tugs at Cassandra’s lips—she loves her brothers, but this is one area she can’t defend them in. "They grew up...rich," she says, fluttering her gloved fingers for effect. "They don't understand."

“Yeah,” Stephanie says, the bite seeping out of her words. She sounds bone-tired, and Cassandra tests her luck, placing a hand on her back.

“Jason understands,” she presses. She knows Stephanie’s aware of his background— _crime alley-crooked_ is what she’d called him before. "He grew up here.”

"Just like me, huh?" Stephanie pauses. "Well, let's hope he doesn't end up like me. The old man doesn’t need another memorial in the Cave."

Cassandra knows her words go right through Stephanie, so she makes no effort to correct her line of thinking and instead reaches into her utility belt, pulling out her own pair of binoculars. "Can I watch with you?"

Stephanie says nothing for a few moments, and then reaches for her helmet and puts it on again, shrugging. "Go ahead," she says, the vocal configurations in the helmet rendering her voice gruff.

They stay like that for a long time, the only sounds in the air the distant honking of cars and the faint _vwip_ of the helmet’s lenses zooming in. Like most Crime Alley apartments, the building becomes active around 4 AM, with several people hobbling in after a long workday. Cassandra alternates between scanning her wrist computer and keeping an eye on the windows. She’s always hated stakeouts—they make her jittery, and after an hour of waiting, her body feels numb with need for action. She glances over at Stephanie, who’s been completely silent. Two years ago, Stephanie would have already been groaning, fingers tapping at the rooftop and Tim chiding her on the comms. Now, she is perfectly still, running through the same cycle of motions as she takes in the building.

Finally, something happens. Stephanie catches it first, her lenses snapping to a mid-level window. She taps Cassandra and points.

“That’s his place,” she murmurs. “No one should be in there.”

Cassandra follows her gaze—sure enough, a faint fluorescent light is trickling from the window, distinct in an array of dark frames. Something is shifting in the darkness of the apartment, and Stephanie rises to her feet, leather jacket fluttering in the late night wind. She pulls out a grappling gun, shooting out the line and vaulting onto the rooftop. Cassandra follows suit, boots pounding against gravel as they round the length of the building and drop onto the fire escape, Stephanie’s descent jangling the metal and Cassandra’s silent. They work in quick, practiced unison, Cassandra picking at the window’s lock and Stephanie hefting it open. It’s clearly very old, the frame sticking to the building’s worn brick, but they’re eventually inside the hallway, passing a quietly humming elevator and a tired-looking elderly woman bundled in a coat. Cassandra tips her head at her, swinging her flashlight’s beam away, and Stephanie pauses for a quiet conversation.

By the time Stephanie rejoins Cassandra at the apartment’s door, Cassandra has pressed the door open a crack, swinging her wide white lenses on Stephanie’s form. 

“She hasn’t seen him for a week,” Stephanie says quietly, unsheathing a black-hilted dagger—a League model, Cassandra notes with a jolt of anxiety. “Looks like the whole building’s aware of this.”

Cassandra hums in discontent—with this many people aware, it’ll be difficult to investigate readily available suspects. Stephanie grunts in agreement and gestures towards the door. Three beats pass, the rickety descent of the nearby elevator jarring Cassandra senses, and then they burst into the apartment, Cassandra ducking when the fluorescent light swings on them.

The apartment looks to be in tatters, grime coating the edges of the walls and glass shards peppering the floor. The intense, tangy scent of bleach wafts through the air, and Cassandra glances at Stephanie, pulling out a rebreather to orient herself. The Red Hood’s helmet is on, but the trembling of her form betrays her rage as she brandishes her blade at the source of the light.

There, perched on a window sill, is the terrified-looking figure of Robin, his brightly colored suit flashing as he turns off his light. Cassandra immediately walks forward, weaving around Stephanie to obscure her view of the boy. When she reaches Jason, she draws her cape around him. 

Cassandra’s mouth is dry, head pounding with the tension in the room and the scent of bleach—she closes her eyes and leans in, speaking urgently. “Why are you here?”

Jason trembles slightly against her, green gloves scrabbling along the material of her cape. “Investigating,” he says weakly, and she catches his gaze flitting to Stephanie in the front of the room. “I… knew him. What is she doing here?”

Cassandra can’t blame Jason for how jumpy he is around Stephanie. When she’d first re-emerged in Gotham, she caught him out on a patrol, leaving him with a bullet graze and a broken arm that had put him out of commission for a month. Damian had had half a mind to go after her then, only calmed by Tim’s reasoning. It was Cassandra who’d pursued her the next night, sweeping through the city in her rage. Cassandra clenches a hand to steady herself—no time to be swept into the past now.

“Does Oracle know you’re here?”

“I...turned off my tracker,” Jason admits, and Cassandra begins cracking open the window, pointing at the end of the grappling gun in his utility belt. If Damian had been correct about the effects of pit madness, she only has a minute or two until violence ensues, and she will _not_ let Jason get caught in the line of fire. 

“Leave, little brother,” she says, prodding him and doing her best to sound firm, and he juts awkwardly out of the window, glancing back at the apartment. Something akin to regret flashes across his face and his line digs into the adjacent building’s ledge before he swings across the alley. Cassandra watches as his form disappears. She can read how new he is to this in his movements, in the way his grip on the gun is uncertain and the way his legs seem to fight against his own cape. A new, unattended Robin is never a good thing. She quickly scans her wrist computer, letting out a short sigh of relief when the Robin symbol flickers back to life. She’ll need to have a conversation with Bruce and Tim later about trackers and their security.

By the time she’s turned back around, Stephanie is crouched by the floor, a small flashlight in hand. Cassandra warily notes that she’s discarded both her helmet and her domino—she looks uncomfortable, a hand clenched tight to her knee, and when Cassandra approaches, she looks up. 

Her eyes are a deep, deep green—brighter green than they’d been before, glowing faintly in the darkness beyond bloodshot whites. Stephanie must have been able to read Cassandra’s caution, because she barks out a sharp laugh, rising shakily to her feet.

“Relax, Cassie,” she grinds out, and Cassandra stills, distrust roiling in her gut; she hasn’t heard that nickname since Stephanie was in a Robin suit. “Pit madness’ll fade. Not that I could hurt you, anyway.”

Cassandra feels a little glimmer of satisfaction at that, and she tilts her head, questions dying on her tongue. _Would you have hurt Jason? Would you try to hurt me?_ But, as Duke so often puts it, some things are better left unsaid. So she leaves it unsaid, falling into a familiar but silent routine as Stephanie searches throughout the right side of the room and she takes the left. She picks her way through overturned chairs, a small pile of blankets, and a shelf that looks like it collapsed. She crouches next to it, fishing in her utility belt for an ultraviolet light. Jason clearly had the right idea with how potent the scent of bleach is, and she flashes the lavender beam across the wood, heart sinking at the splatters she sees.

“This is a crime scene.” Stephanie’s voice comes from the other side of the room, and Cassandra hums in agreement, making her way over to the hallway. Stephanie is kneeling by the porcelain of the sink, white curls snaking their way down her face as she observes its bottom. “Whoever did this knew what they were doing, but they missed a spot.”

Cassandra mimics her position, heart sinking even further at the rust-brown confirmations of violence. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, because it feels like the right thing to say, and Stephanie sighs, leaning against the bathroom’s mismatched tile walls.

“He had no connections to Crime Alley’s gangs,” she says quietly. “He was well-liked and well-known. I don’t understand this.”

“A hit,” Cassandra speculates, bracing a gloved hand against the wall. “Trafficking.” 

Stephanie tenses at the implication, and Cassandra can understand why—children who exit Gotham’s docks rarely return, and although Batgirl’s work had made a dent in various underground rings, the effect was still relatively small. She feels all too tense herself, mind scattered between Robin’s movement on the holographic map, the fate of the children in the photograph, the incessant green in Stephanie’s eyes, and the dizzying scent of bleach. 

“When someone goes down in Crime Alley, no one makes a fucking peep. No one, Cass.” Stephanie’s head is in her hands, shaking slowly from side to side, and when her voice breaks, Cassandra knows that it’s time to go.

She stands up, pulling the taller woman to her feet and reaching upwards towards the back of her head. Her movements are tentative, unpracticed, nothing like the quick and silent choices of a duo patrol, but Stephanie doesn’t try to move away when Cassandra pulls her own cowl down and presses their foreheads together. They stay like that for a few moments, sweat beading Stephanie’s skin and Cassandra’s breaths quiet and apprehensive, and then Stephanie pulls away gently, eyes glistening in the dim slot of moonlight.

“Thanks,” she says, and Cassandra’s hand lingers on her cheek, tracing scars she doesn’t recognize. She can vaguely remember Damian mentioning this effect of the Pit, that it washes away old marks on the skin, signifying physical rebirth. Stephanie used to have a faint beauty mark right here, a little under her cheekbone, but when Cassandra’s thumb swipes over it now, there’s nothing there. She deserved— _deserves_ better. Sensations burn the inside of Cassandra’s mind, a whirlwind of panic on the comms and a search of the city that lasted for days. She can feel the way the tatters of Stephanie’s Robin suit felt on her fingers and how cold her body was when she held her. She can hear Tim’s panicked screams, the way Duke visibly jolted when he walked in on the scene, Bruce’s low, unnatural sobs.

Cassandra thinks that she could live a thousand lifetimes and still never make up for being too late. Now, when Stephanie turns away, she’s absolutely sure of it.

* * *

Two hours later, the sky begins to bleed pink, an indicator that patrol is over. Cassandra leans against an alley wall, watching as Stephanie zip-ties an unconscious man’s wrists together. When she’s done, Cassandra inputs the street corner into her wrist computer, lips quirking slightly when Tim’s tired voice comes through the comms moments later: _“Got it, sending to GCPD.”_ Bruce implemented the text-based system when she’d first donned her cape to compensate for speech-based patrol interactions—she no longer needs it, but it’s still very helpful.

An hour after that, she’s speeding towards the Cave, eyes burning with exhaustion that only ever seems to hit her when she’s close to home. Her bike skids to a stop in the Western tunnel, and when she takes the stairs up to the Batcomputer, boots clanging against the metal, she’s greeted by an equally exhausted-looking Tim and a very guilty-looking Jason.

She goes for Jason first, taking off her cowl to fix him with the most severe glare she can muster—there’s humor in the way she pinches his cheek, but there’s tension too, the cold sensation of fear trickling down her spine at the thought of a Robin out in Gotham alone, tracker turned off, comms unattended.

“Ow! Fuck! Cass!” Jason protests, but Cassandra leans in close, prodding his chest with her finger.

“Tracker never off again,” she snaps. “Comms open. No more solo patrols.”

Jason gives Tim an incredulous look, clearly expecting support, but Tim shrugs, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee. “She’s right, Jay. You could’ve been hurt.”

The younger boy flushes, and Cassandra draws him into a tentative hug, pressing a kiss to his hair. “We were worried for you,” she whispers, and the tension melts from his body as he leans against her, eyes closing. 

“I know, I know,” he mumbles, and Cassandra decides to spare him the remainder of her lecture—she expects Bruce will have that base covered when he’s back on-world, anyway.

Tim’s gaze finds her when she approaches, face bathed in the blue of the Batcomputer’s monitor. She can see the lines of exhaustion in his features when he offers her a sly smile. 

“Good patrol tonight?” Tim asks lightly, and Cassandra sticks her tongue out at him. It’s easier this way, when they dance around the topic of Stephanie and find humor in their family’s run-ins with her instead of fear. It’s easy, and kind, and when Cassandra wraps her arms around Tim, placing her chin on his head, she hums, content.

“Of course it was. I had Oracle.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments are appreciated!


End file.
